Arts journalism and communications student reports for The New York Times

Emily Ehle G’21 reported for an investigative piece on an artist’s pension trust, which ran in he Times this summer.

Emily Ehle G'21
Emily Ehle G’21

Not long before she was set to graduate from the Goldring arts journalism and communications program, Emily Ehle G’21 received a call from Goldring director Eric Grode about an article for The New York Times that needed some legwork done in the Syracuse area.

“He called me and asked if I was in town and had the time to do an assignment with The New York Times,” Ehle says. “He was like, ‘this is very vague. I can’t say anything. But are you around?’”

After Grode connected Ehle with New York Times writers, Ehle was offered a freelance contract with the newspaper. Her job was to investigate a warehouse in Liverpool where the Artist Pension Trust said they were storing artwork for their members. Ehle reached out to the Liverpool facility, and when they failed to return her calls, she dug a little deeper.

“I interviewed art organizations around Syracuse to see if anyone had any knowledge of the facility or of art being sold. No one did,” Ehle says. “I also checked with a company near the facility to see if they were aware of an arts facility on the same road. They were aware but hardly ever saw anyone there.”

Ehle couldn’t tell her friends and colleagues what she was up to during the few weeks she investigated for The New York Times. She also couldn’t reveal what she was working on to her sources to get them to talk. 

Ehle says that seeing her name on the article, which was published in July, was worth all the secrecy.

“I was so happy,” Ehle says. “Especially the fact that you get to see your name in The New York Times. You don’t get to see that every day.”

Since graduation, Ehle has worked as a managing editor for a soon-to-be-launched publication called Upstate on Earth. Earlier this month, she accepted a position as a creative development coordinator with the commerce, content and commercial innovation team at NBC. Ehle says both her with The Times and at Newhouse led to this opportunity. 

Ehle, who is from the Syracuse suburb of Baldwinsville, graduated from Georgetown University with a degree in marketing in 2020 and decided to return home to pursue graduate study at Newhouse. 

“It was really fun to be around like-minded people,” she says. “Not just like-minded people, but [also] people [who] have really interesting passions that you might not ever even think about or know anything about.”

Benjamin Schiller is a sophomore broadcast and digital journalism major at the Newhouse School.